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Most-wanted Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was formally notified Sunday by Mexican authorities that the process of extradition to the U.S., where there are multiple criminal indictments against him in at least seven states, has started.

With the assistance of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies, the Mexican Marines recaptured Guzmán on Friday in the town of Los Mochis, in the Mexican coastal state of Sinaloa.

Guzmán escaped in July from a maximum security prison outside Mexico City by crawling through a hole in his cell shower into a sophisticated tunnel. It was the second time he had bought his freedom through corruption and bribes in a long and at times surreal criminal career.

Las year's prison break was a huge embarrassment for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who had brushed off suggestions that the drug lord was powerful enough to buy his way out.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office said Sunday that Interpol and Mexico's Agency of Criminal Investigations served Guzmán with two arrest warrants with the purpose of extraditing him to the U.S. inside his prison cell, at the same Almoloya prison from which he escaped in July.

Washington has filed two extradition requests for El Chapo: the first one while he was still in prison last year and the second in September 2015, following his July escape.

The decision to move as fast as the Mexican legal systems allows marks a 180% policy shift by the Mexican government which, up until recently, had opposed extraditing him, arguing national sovereignty concerns. It's also a tacit admission that the Mexican system failed twice to keep him behind bars.

A big question now is how long will the process take and when Guzmán will finally cross the border to face U.S. justice.

"I think it will take several months minimum," a senior U.S. Administration official told me.

The other question is, will Guzmán flee again? Will he buy his freedom again?

"I’m not worried about a third escape because EPN (President Enrique Peña Nieto) wouldn’t be able to show his face and the U.S. government would really slam him and the Mexican government publicly and he knows this. So they’ll watch him this time with a CCTV that shows 24/7 all angles," the senior U.S. official told me.

According to the Mexican government, prior to the July escape Guzmán was also under 24 hour surveillance from inside the prison. "If it were up to me, I’d invite the family members of the people he and the Sinaloa Cartel have killed to sit outside the cell and watch him," the official added.

Under Guzmán's watch, the Sinaloa Cartel became an unparalleled multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise with worldwide reach. It is estimated to control one third of the U.S. illegal narcotics market.

In an controversial exclusive interview with actor and movie producer Sean Penn, published Saturday by Rolling Stone, El Chapo boasted: "I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”

In an interview with CNN Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said that El Chapo's "braggadocio's action about how much heroin he sends around the world, including to the United States, is maddening."

Despite U.S. government assurances concerns remain that the drug lord might try to escape once more. Michael Braun, a former chief of operations at the DEA, told CNN that Mexico would be wise to send Guzmán to the U.S. "The only way that the government of Mexico is going to ensure absolutely that they don't go through another embarrassing situation, another embarrassing escape, is to extradite him to the U.S.," Braun said.

Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, agrees. "We cannot afford to let #ElChapo slip the bonds of justice again. We need to extradite him to the United States," McCaul tweeted.

In a statement, he added: "I...believe that his extradition to the United States is the best course of action... El Chapo has proven time and time again that Mexican prisons are no match for his network of criminals or his desire to escape prison."

Extradition to the U.S. has been Guzman's worst nightmare. Badillo, his expert extradition lawyer, told U.S. Spanish TV network Univision in August that the drug lord confided to him that the “solution to his fear” was to escape from a maximum security prison after 17 months in jail.

As a result of Guzman's escape, along with other negative events, Peña Nieto's international reputation took a dive. The President, therefore, deployed the country's full law enforcement capabilities to try to recapture him. Finally, on Friday, those efforts bore fruit.

Mexican Attorney General Arely Gómez said Friday that one of Guzman's key tunnel builders led officials to the neighborhood in Los Mochis, where authorities had been watching for a month. Gómez also suggested that there was a connection between his capture and his meeting with the Penn and actress Kate del Castillo, whom El Chapo contacted through his lawyers to propose she do a favorable biopic.